


Retelling of a (Not) Hero's Origin Story

by orphan_account



Series: And The City Still Sings Her Siren Song [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: 3am Fic, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Everything is angst with Bruce, Felt okay might delete late lmao, Gen, Hope you enjoy, How Do I Tag, I Tried, Light Angst, Not Beta Read, Origin Story, POV Bruce, POV Third Person Limited, Self-Indulgent, So yall know it's unreliable, Unreliable Narrator, excessive use of poetic wording, lets be honest, no beta we die like bruce's parents, or at least im going for poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23961109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bruce Wayne is eight when his parents die, and Gotham takes his soul. He is fifteen and fueled by anger when she takes his mind. Almost seventeen when he leaves, when she takes his heart. And barely twenty-five when he returns, when she takes his body.Twenty-five when all he is, is Gotham’s.
Relationships: Gotham City & Bruce Wayne
Series: And The City Still Sings Her Siren Song [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727491
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31





	Retelling of a (Not) Hero's Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been gathering dust for a while, decided to polish it up (as well as I can polish anything) and see where it takes me. Honestly I'm not really sure if this would qualify as a teen and up, but i dont feel like it fits in gen. idk. also, playing real fast and loose with the whole time thing because is DC can do it so can I! 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy this trainwreck :)

When Bruce Wayne is eight years old his parents die in front of him. 

He is eight years old as his and his mom’s screams are muffled by one gunshot. Then two. Then it’s just him, sinking to his knees and sobbing into the night.

After that he no longer has a shield from the devils of Gotham. As if smelling their blood _(it’s splashed on his shoes, stained the concrete, sunken through his clothes and skin into his very bones),_ the scent of a fresh kill, they surround the alley and trap him in; they show their teeth and don’t mask the hunger in their eyes. 

_(They do not care that he is eight, newly orphaned. They do not coo in real sympathy, no hands reach out to comfort.)_

A trauma blanket is placed over his shoulders, scratchy and heavy. It offers no warmth, it doesn’t tether him to the present because his head is far from the clouds. _(His parents’ bodies fell to the ground, he’d fallen into hell.)_ But a detective, greying and unshaven, looks at him _(into his eyes, his soul, unlike the others who avoid his gaze)_ and nods his pity.

He turns to peek at the reporters _(their shouted questions are the call of vultures spotting prey, cameras clicking and blinding him so it’s easier to pick him apart)_ , then quickly turns away. 

He is trapped. 

Shadows are kept at bay with the curious flashlights and the blink of cameras and sirens, putting a spotlight of their bodies. _(It’s too early for them to start smelling, and yet the polluted air seems to choke him with every breath he takes.)_

He would prefer the shadows’ laughter closing in to staring at white sheets over bodies, stained red with fresh blood. His mom’s pearls still on the ground, his dad’s hat knocked to the side.

Realization weighs heavy on young shoulders, that twitch at the crowd that morphs into a single voice of protest as the police annoyedly _(because it was for their sake, not his)_ tell them to back off. 

The alley may taunt him with his parents, but even in death they are the safest to be with. If he slips into the night, Gotham will chew him up and spit him out _(because he hasn’t learned her rules yet, isn’t truly ‘Gothamite’ yet, and she doesn’t like those who_ _can’t, won’t_ _don’t follow her rules)_.

A cop pockets his mom’s pearls, another his dad’s watch. One shoves their wallets into his pockets - taking all of it would be suspicious in any other city, but this isn’t any other city. This is Gotham. 

Dark blue eyes follow their actions; they do not notice, they would not care if they did. And the protest sticks in his throat, yet stays in eyes that they don’t bother to meet.

_(Thrown in the deep end, he is learning how Gotham plays quickly.)_

Pity Detective - Gordon, he’ll later learn - says something inaudible, frowning when Bruce looks up blankly. His mouth moves, but Bruce’s head feels like cotton and he can’t hear over the call of the vultures. 

One slips in, the detective glares at it and tries to shoo it away. It ignores him and turns to Bruce, all sharp teeth and cruel eyes. It opens it’s mouth to swallow him whole - 

He feels justified throwing up on it’s shoes.

_(Gotham almost laughs, and she decides she likes this one. She’ll watch him closely - and as he grows, so will her favor for him.)_

The detective looks amused and the vulture flies off. He nods at Bruce again, saying words he can’t hear, before turning away. 

Unfortunately, he looks up at the wrong time. They fumble with his parents’ bodies and they fall again. 

Except they are already dead. And he has already fallen with them.

_(Bruce Wayne is eight when Gotham takes his soul.)_

\- - -

At fifteen Bruce Wayne’s teeth start to sharpen into fangs and horns sprout from his head.

He doesn’t like bullies. 

Those who would makes others feel badly simply to make themselves feel better, when truly it was a statement of themselves. Showed their own pitiful insecurities, how they were so weak that others needed to be even weaker for them to be superior. 

Of course, they agreed. So, naturally, they beat him up. 

He doesn’t win. 

Alfred tuts and fusses while patching him up. Threatening subtly that should he continue to get into fights, that the best course of action might be to resume tutoring. 

Bruce shakes his head. He refuses to be tutored again.

He also refuses to stop getting into fights with people who deserve it _(and what gave him the right to decide who deserved to be fought? Who deserved to be defended, and who deserved to be ignored? What did he know of anything?_

_Nothing._

_But the whispers he can’t quite make out in his ear sound like encouragement. For some reason, he can’t stop.)_

Though, after the threat he explains to Alfred _(the protests teachers wouldn’t listen to, reasoning the principal dismissed)_ and Alfred listens. And he thinks. And he responds: he’s going to teach Bruce how to fight.

_(So what if maybe he likes the way fighting makes him feel. Likes the way his heart races and pounds against his chest like it wanted to fight too. Likes the sharp pain that stung and was drowned out by a wave of numbing anger._

~~_And so what if the slight tang of metal made him want more, or there was a curious satisfaction at the way their skin bloomed into black-blue bruises and their bones gave out under his attack_ ~~ _~~.)~~ _

Alfred teaches him well. 

Kids start to leave him and others alone. Most of them stop bullying because ‘that orphan kid Wayne will kick anyone’s ass’.

He starts winning more, bleeding less.

_(No one mentions the way his lips curl up when someone ignores the warnings. No one mentions the way his eyes dance like the devil’s when there’s blood - even if it’s his own._

_No one mentions when he goes looking for fights.)_

It’s not enough. _(It never will be)._ There are still bullies, just outside of the prestigious walls of Gotham’s most wealthy school; just bigger and meaner; just more experienced, more dangerous. _(Maybe he likes the danger. The rush as he sees red, the moment right before he knows his opponent knows he's going to win._

_The fear in their eyes.)_

He knows how to fight, and keeps training; knows how to win, and keeps winning; knows he should stop...but he doesn't. Then there's a shift. Something changes. And then the metallic taste of blood is a near constant on his tongue. 

Then trouble found him. 

_(Or at least that’s what he’ll swear by. Because the truth is stuck in his throat and fear - of disappointment, of anger, of disgust of something everyone understood but know one talked about - locks it in place. Because Gotham trails along and teaches him the law of the land, and says that being honest will only get him hurt.)_

Gotham smiles and takes hold on his hand; the rules of her game - laws of the city - start to seep into his bones. She kisses his forehead to let him know she is there. And she decides that keeping close to him was a good idea. 

He is almost her’s - and he almost doesn’t notice. 

_(Bruce Wayne is fifteen when Gotham takes his mind.)_

\- - -

A few months from seventeen and Bruce Wayne realizes his parents death had only thrown him into the deep end of the kiddie pool. 

Of course he stops at his parents’ graves - a small space reserved for them, hidden in the garden of Wayne Manor. Says goodbye, and kisses the cold stones that keep watch over the dirt that holds their bodies. 

They kept him safe, and he would always be grateful for that. But it was time to see if he could swim with the sharks.

Alfred protests, calling his idea idiotic and absurd. Swears he’ll get himself killed; mulls over how he’ll fair; worries that he won’t survive. 

He helps him pack anyway.

Gotham puts him to sleep with a lullabye of sirens and screams. She is full of shadows, and she tucks him in the darkest ones to keep him safe; and she crawls in beside him, feeding him dreams of bats and bruises and bloody fists. And when he awakes, he knows that he has been bound to her forever. 

She’s invaded his thoughts and he could ignore her haunting siren song only because he would return for her.

They both knew that anyway. But letting Gotham murmur to him how she worked, how she was more victim than villain, urges him to go more than ever. To become better. 

Become more. 

He needed to leave so he could grow. She needed a defender, and he needed to learn how to be one. 

_(And Gotham wonders how long it will take for him to give up. The titles she’s collected - ‘The City of Tragedy’, ‘The City of a Million Sins’, and so on - she has earned time and time again._

_He doesn’t give up, she sees, in the end._

_Oh, she’d love him for it, and hate him too. She’d take away those that he loved while encouraging him to keep going. Even when she caused him pain, he would watch over her.)_

Before he finally let’s Gotham fall far behind, he sleeps in the alley where Gotham had started to infect him. 

The concrete is still stained red, too much blood shed to be washed away. And as he lays down to rest, he spots it: a single, white pearl. 

‘A parting gift,’ he muses. And when he closes his eyes, she whispers back, ‘A Reminder’.

_(Bruce Wayne is seventeen when Gotham takes his heart.)_

\- - -

Barely twenty-five Bruce Wayne returns. 

He explains his plan to Alfred and Alfred listens. And he frowns. And he sighs. And he responds: he’s going to help Bruce, if only since Bruce would do it anyway and better to be able to help than stand aside and watch him die. 

_(But Bruce will fall with the sun, while Batman will rise with the night. And Alfred will be there at his side through it all, seeing him die over and over again.)_

When it comes to Wayne Enterprises, and enemies lurks on every side he becomes someone else. Someone annoying, yet pleasant enough that people would only want to off him for his money; flippant, yet charitable enough people wouldn’t think him awful; and overall: an exceedingly flirtatious ditz.

_(No one brings up when he was a teenager; all bloody fists and dangerous eyes. They think time outside the Gotham City lines made him softer. That time replaced his blackened heart with bliss; his broken mind with an ignorance; his lost soul with placidity._

_He doesn’t correct them.)_

And he acts so very unlike the other Gotham Elite _(who bared their teeth for pictures and people, and let outsiders think it was a smile)_ ; he doesn’t snarl or spit while holding pleasant conversation. Doesn’t snarl or spit at all, in fact. 

He hides his fangs and covers his horns and keeps the fire in his chest away from his eyes. 

_(Gotham howls and hisses at him to stop hiding as if he were different from the rest of the demons that she had created. Because he was her masterpiece. She had shattered him into jagged pieces and put back together to make a dagger._

_But Bruce Wayne simply kisses her on the cheek and tells her all would be well.)_

As the Batman though, his fangs grow longer and gleam in the city lights; his horns sharpen and cast shadows of their own; and the fire in his eyes burns through those he casts his judgement on.

It feels like he’s fifteen again: beating up bullies and Alfred patching him up.

The icepack given to him is pressed hard against a developing bruise. Soon he learns to keep his mouth shut while Alfred tends to his wounds.

Of course the people scream at him to stop. To leave them alone to rot; to let them continue in their ways; to be the apathetic bystander who doesn't raise a hand, but doesn't stop one either.

And that is the apathy that plagues Gotham; that allows criminals to run free and people to get hurt. That Batman resents, yet everyone assumes of his cool demeanor. 

Bad things happen when people who can help stand aside. 

He doesn’t stop fighting. 

_(She taunts him in the faces of his enemies. ‘Do you think you’re a hero?’. He answers ‘No’ every time, and ignores the insistent ‘Then what is it that you are?’_

_The question is unanswered, at least to anyone but him, for a long time._

_Then someone he comes to care about asks. And he tells them.)_

Not because he is a hero. 

He’s not. And he’s not a saviour. Not even a defender like he’d made up in his head to justify his deeds, thinking about it in his nights away.

The Batman is not to save or to help, to inspire hope or encourage goodness. He stops criminals, but he’s not really upholding ‘justice’. He’s not a god amongst men - though there are those who think him to be the devil - with a city acting as his own shining temple. 

No, The Batman is there to put fear into those with evil in their hearts and souls. To warn people of what happens when one decides to add to Gotham’s sins. To scare those who know Gotham’s rules, yet still step out of line. 

To be Gotham’s grim reaper.

Because although there are nights when he looks into the eyes of those he looms over and sees just another victim, there will always be villains. And maybe that small, childish part of him that had promised to fight every bully wanted to see Gotham shine like she seemed to when his parents were alive, taking care of her and her people. 

Gotham would never glitter like Metropolis, never smile instead of baring her teeth, but he promises to ease her suffering and disease - even if she fights him every step of the way. 

_(Bruce Wayne is twenty-five when Gotham takes his body._

_Bruce Wayne is twenty-five when there is nothing left, and all he is, is Gotham’s.)_

**Author's Note:**

> please comment, i swear i can take criticism (not without crying, but a comment is a comment - mean or comments i find unnecessarily rude will be deleted). 
> 
> Tell me what you thought because even though this is completely self-indulgent I'd still really love even a comment saying 'its not shit'. and i'd probably find it in me to post anything i may or may not write in the future, like years lmao, for this kind of writing im trying out (still finding a writing style after all these years...of avoiding writing.)
> 
> um, have a great day and hope you at least somewhat enjoyed !


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